There are a couple of mental benchmarks people often have when they start thinking about pay-per-click job advertising. One is Google or Yahoo’s pay-per-click keyword advertising and the other is the pay-per-listing model of job boards. But, Indeed’s job advertising system is distinct from both and has some clear advantages in comparison.

Fundamentally, our system is a function of the fact that Indeed’s natural job search results comprise job advertisements, but ones we aren’t paid to display and that are ranked strictly by relevance. When a company or job board sponsors their jobs to drive additional traffic, their jobs are highlighted as sponsored advertisements above and below our natural results whenever those jobs match users’ search queries. The advertiser only pays for clicks on the sponsored advertisements, while clicks from the same jobs in our natural results continue to be free. Job seeker referrals are highly qualified because sponsored jobs are ranked by relevance as well as by bid. Conversion rates – from sponsored clicks to applications – are also extremely high because the advertisement landing pages are the individual job descriptions on the advertisers’ own websites.

Our advertising system is much simpler to use than search engine keyword advertising and doesn’t require any additional job posting management. Sponsored job advertisements are generated automatically from the jobs listed on advertisers’ own websites; advertisers don’t have to pick keywords or write copy. They only pay per click, can turn ads on and off at any time, and can alter job visibility by raising or lowering their bid.